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>> 10.13.2012

US Presswire

The story of the NFL stretches back ninety-two years, to 1920. It has existed as long as the greatest lifetime of a man. The NFL’s most celebrated chronicler, Ed Sabol, is just four years its elder—and tragically, he has already outlived his equally celebrated son.

The history of the NFL is at at turning point: when Ed Sabol passes, the last person who can understand and share its entire story will be gone. Like baseball, the history of the NFL will have to be told through generations, kept and tended and groomed and passed down from parent to child; from scribe to scribe.

My principle sporting passion, soccer, seems to be in the process of shedding its memory, believing itself to be an invincible megabeing that sprung from nothing, fully mega, around 1992.

I have often complained about this phenomenon in the NFL, where anything that happened before Jerry Rice never happened. With every franchise relocation, with every schedule realignment, with every record broken our collective sporting consciousness distances itself further from its glorious past. History becomes legend, legend becomes myth, and things which should not be forgotten fall out of memory.

This week, Alex Karras passed away.

I knew him first as Webster’s dad, a wise and gentle giant with a quick wit and a big heart. I knew him second as ‘Alex Karras, Former Detroit Lion’ in sundry TV appearances, local commercials, and the like. I knew him third as Mongo in Blazing Saddles, and nary an internet scribe mourned Karras’s passing this week without quoting his immortal line. I knew him most recently as the ringleader of the Lions' rowdy band in George Plimpton's Paper Lion.

It is this amalgam of genial wiseacre, big-hearted big guy, and former jock who was anything but dumb that most of us deep in the football Internet streets will picture when we think of The Mad Duck.

It is a gravely incomplete picture.

"For me, Alex Karras will always be a pink giant with a towel wrapped around his waist. He will always have a scowl on his face, a cigar in one paw and a cold beer in the other."

Karras moonlighted as a professional wrestler. He owned a bar—and not just any bar, a seedy joint with a sports betting ring with ties to the mob. After admitting he’d placed bets on the NFL, too, Karras was suspended for a year. During his suspension, he went back to pro wrestling and kept on doing his thing. When he got unsuspended, he went right back to humiliating quarterbacks, rookies, kickers and other “milk drinkers,” both on the field and off.

Karras is not in the Hall of Fame, despite his on-field dominance and off-field, well, fame. His flouting of law and authority kept him out of Canton, though I guess nobody told the San Jose Mercury-News.

Watch the footage of the legendary Lions defensive tackle. See the athleticism. See the relentlessness. See him fly to the quarterback regardless of everything else. Hear the lamentations of his opponents about his dirty play. Consider the obvious intellect and humor, and the improbably spectacular array of headline-grabbing off-field exploits.

Less famously, Suh is smart. He’ll discuss his vicious pursuit of quarterbacks with charm and loquaciousness. Talk to Suh for a few minutes, as I have, and you’ll feel he’s got a lot more to give the world than quarterback sacks.

Lions fans across the globe spent a lot of words, appropriately, praising good old Alex Karras this week. With Karras’s violent, vicious, dominant play a memory from another generation, and his post-sports career as lovable TV and film personality wore his famous rough edges smooth.

Lions fans across the globe also spent a lot of words dismissing Ndamukong Suh this week. They’re sick of his antics, sick of his temper, sick of dreading whatever his next crazy, embarrassing mistake will be.

I was sick of going 0-16.

It’s hard to think of pro athletes as human beings. But they are: real, complicated, multifaceted people with neuroses and complexes and contradictions and flaws and hopes and goals and favorites and family. They can be a vicious sonuvabitch on the field, and hug their mother off it. They can scream at people in traffic and donate millions to their alma mater. They can be a brilliant, generous, funloving guys and flip out when maybe your actions have consequences you’d rather not have to deal with.

Don’t let this incident be the last straw for you with Suh, or the Lions. He, and they, are young and talented and have the next few years to fulfill their potential. If, as I’ve implied, Suh could become the next Karras, get a head start now on accepting his flaws, so you can accept his many strengths.

I definitely appreciate the words on Karras, but Suh off the field (as far as we are allowed to know) is nowhere near charismatic, accessible and transparent with his thoughts as Karras.

I'm sure it's partly a sign of the times with Pro athletes equalling celebrities nowadays, but Suh (on-field accomplishments aside) deserves no mention with Karras, with the Peyton Manning-esque levels of publicity and message control he imposes.

Karras didn't give a crap about being suspended a year. Suh pro-actively makes appointments with the commissioner and makes sure everyone knows about it.

Bust in the sense that he hasn't lived up to his #2 pick overall status. Sure, he had a solid, very promising rookie year, but has regressed since then (this past Sunday against Philly aside). He's been a liability against the run and commits too many mental penalties. He has not lived up to his #2 draft pick spot!